Check and Mate

Chess. It's not the sexiest thing in the world. OR IS IT? Lately I've been noticing chess is used as a metaphor for sex in a lot of books. In Arnold Haultain's Hints for Lovers (link), he writes,

In the chess-like game of love-making, no woman plays for check-mate: the game interests her too much to bring it to a finish. What pleases her most is stale-mate, where, though the King cannot be captured, the captress can maneuver without end.

Coincidentally, after randomly coming across this quote, I started noticing chess really is a metaphor for sex in a lot of books. Take Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson (review here), for instance--the hero and heroine spend a good portion of the book playing chess in the library, and when the heroine finally accepts Phillip's proposal he's like, "Hey girl, let's go to the library to play chess." There are also chess scenes in Scandal of the Year by Laura Lee Guhrke, Breaking Dawn (the movie--I'm not sure that was in the book), and Harry Potter.

Makes you wonder what they were playing for with giant game of wizard's chess, doesn't it?



Do you think chess is the Game of Love, or is it more like Parcheesi?